In response to the challenges presented by our current inability to meet physically, Surbiton Chess Club has gone online.

Using the chess.com platform we have created a club specific area that allows our members to come together to play online chess between themselves. If you have a chess.com account then add Surbiton Chess Club to your clubs (it is member-only so please state who you are). If you don't have a chess.com account then you can create one for free very easily, just go to the website using the link on this page. Once you have signed up and been accepted into our online club you will get messages on chess.com informing you of our upcoming events. Entry is free to club members.

The first online Surbiton Chess Club tournament on 25 March 2020, which was a 5 round blitz event, was won by Mark Josse with 4.5/5. Of note was that one of our members joined the tournament from Cambodia! That tournament featured 20 players. We currently have a total of 29 members signed up on this platform. The second tournament was on 1st April 2020 and was won by Altaf Chaudhry with 5/5 followed by Ranesh Ratnesan in second and Olli Gill in third, each with 4/5. Any questions please contact Angus James.

Aside from the above our 4NCL team is going online too, given that the 4NCL face to face matches are also suspended. See below for further details on how the 4NCL online league will work from Tim Seymour:

1) Weekly games, 7:30pm on Tuesday's;

2) Games to be played on Lichess.org. This is a different platform to the one being used by Surbiton Chess Club (above) but is also free and simple to sign up for;

3) Matches will be between teams of four players using a 45 mins/15 sec time control;

4) Divisions are to be sorted by team strength, rather than regional areas;

5) Entry is free.

So far Tim is close to having enough interest to enter three teams. You dont have to be one of our usual 4NCL players to play in this event. If you'd like to get involved and haven't let Tim Seymour know yet please do so before Friday 3rd April 2020, as all entries have to be confirmed by then.

Update: We have now entered three teams into 4NCL Online. One in each of divisions 1, 3 and 4.

The second and third teams won 3-0 and 4-0 respectively. So a very nice start to the club's 4NCL online campaign. Results and games can be found on the 4NCL home page.